COMING SOON: The Oscar Slate *UPDATED*

It's about that time again, time for the good movies! The Venice and Telluride film festivals are underway and we will soon get an idea of who are this year's hotshots. As usual I will give you a preview of the films you can expect to be in the race. I haven't missed a nominee yet (see 2011 and 2012), but this year I have this gut feeling that something is gonna break through at the last minute. Barring any surprises, you can trust this list as a reliable source for your Best Picture contenders. As usual, there are a few titles from spring/summer that will certainly be in contention. This year, we already have strong Best Picture contenders in Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom. I've seen Moonrise Kingdom (as of December 2, I've also seen other contenders like Beasts of the Southern Wild, Flight, Life of Pi, The Master and Argo) and it looks more like a screenplay contender to me, but I've been proven wrong before and it has its passionate fans. Also, The Hunger Games, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises seem to be fighting for that "genre" slot in the lineup, but their chances look increasingly unlikely and they may cancel each other out. Anyway, that's enough talk from me. Let's get down to the trailers:

THE MASTER (Sep 21)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Amy Adams, Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Plot: A Naval veteran arrives home from war unsettled and uncertain of his future - until he is tantalized by The Cause and its charismatic leader.

TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE (Sep 21)

Director: Robert Lorenz
Starring: Amy Adams, Clint Eastwood, John Goodman
Plot: An ailing baseball scout in his twilight years takes his daughter along for one last recruiting trip.

ARGO (Oct 12)

Director: Ben Affleck
Starring: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston
Plot: As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

THE SESSIONS (Oct 26)

Director: Ben Lewin
Starring: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy
Plot: A man in an iron lung who wishes to lose his virginity contacts a professional sex surrogate with the help of his therapist and priest.

FLIGHT (Nov 2)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo
Plot: An airline pilot saves a flight from crashing, but an investigation into the malfunctions reveals something troubling.

ANNA KARENINA (Nov 16)

Director: Joe Wright
Starring: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Emily Watson
Plot: Set in late-19th-century Russia high-society, the aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the affluent Count Vronsky.

LINCOLN (Nov 16)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field
Plot: The sixteenth President of the United States guides the North to victory during the Civil War.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (Nov 21)

Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver
Plot: After a stint in a mental institution, former teacher Pat Solitano moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife.

LIFE OF PI (Nov 21)

Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan
Plot: The story of an Indian boy named Pi, a zookeeper's son who finds himself in the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck sets them adrift in the Pacific Ocean.


KILLING THEM SOFTLY (Nov 30)

Director: Andrew Dominik
Starring: Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, Sam Shepard
Plot: Jackie Cogan is a professional enforcer who investigates a heist that went down during a mob-protected poker game.


HYDE PARK ON HUDSON (Dec 7)

Director: Roger Michell
Starring: Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Williams
Plot: The story of the love affair between FDR and his distant cousin Margaret Stuckley, centered around the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the United Kingdom visited upstate New York.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Dec 14)

Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman
Plot: A curious Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, journeys to the Lonely Mountain with a vigorous group of Dwarves to reclaim a treasure stolen from them by the dragon Smaug.

AMOUR (Dec 19)

Director: Michael Haneke
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert
Plot: Georges and Anne are in their eighties.

ZERO DARK THIRTY (Dec 19)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt
Plot: A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy SEAL Team 6 in May, 2011.

THE IMPOSSIBLE (Dec 21)

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Starring: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland
Plot: An account of a family caught, with tens of thousands of strangers, in the mayhem of one of the worst natural catastrophes of our time.

DJANGO UNCHAINED (Dec 25)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio
Plot: With the help of his mentor, a slave-turned-bounty hunter sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.


LES MISERABLES (Dec 25)

Director: Tom Hooper
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, Helena Bonham Carter
Plot: An adaptation of the successful stage musical based on Victor Hugo's classic novel set in 19th-century France, in which a paroled prisoner named Jean Valjean seeks redemption.

PROMISED LAND (Dec 28)

Director: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, Hal Holbrook
Plot: A salesman for a natural gas company experiences life-changing events after arriving in a small town, where his corporation wants to tap into the available resources.

THERESE RAQUIN (Dec 28)
No trailer yet.
Director: Charlie Stratton
Starring: Jessica Lange, Tom Felton, Elizabeth Olsen
Plot: Therese and her lover Laurent murder Camille, Therese's husband.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (No Release Date)

Director: Robert Redford
Starring: Robert Redford, Julie Christie, Chris Cooper
Plot: A thriller centered on a former Weather Underground activist who goes on the run from a journalist who has discovered his identity.

NOT FADE AWAY (No Release Date)

Director: David Chase
Starring: James Gandolfini, John Magaro, Will Brill
Plot: Set in suburban New Jersey the 1960s, a group of friends form a rock band and try to make it big.

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